OCA Group has acquired Melbourne offset firm Print Bound and merged it with its primarily digital subsidiary BPO Print, promising a series of innovation announcements in coming months.
OCA chief executive Naresh Gulati says the merged company, which will trade as Print Bound under OCA’s BPO Intelligence division, will now be able to offer the full range of print, design and photographic services, as ‘the two businesses perfectly complement each other with minimal overlap’.
Gulatari says, “This acquisition is not just strategic in rounding off our capabilities and becoming a one stop shop, but more importantly, the expertise that the Print Bound team have in their field is the new thinking and personality we need to make the company what we envisioned.”
Gulati says the acquisition will triple capacity and allow clients of both companies a complete solution.
“Clients will get much more for less cost, and they will have access to all those areas they didn’t have before,” he says.
“Australian businesses are demanding the ability to have everything under one roof and cheaper costs to print and distribute.”
Gulati expects Print Bound will expand from Melbourne to Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide over the next two years. Both BPO and Print Bound will keep their current sites to run the digital and offset operations of the business.
While the management structure is yet to be finalised, the three Print Bound directors Mark Randles, Mark Tomasini and Mauro Mattarucco will all be involved in leading the business.
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Mattarucco, the former managing director of Print Bound, says the trio we not looking to sell but after being approached by OCA they were excited by Gulati’s vision and wanted to be part of the company’s journey.
“We will be able to provide a wider range of services for our clients and have more resources with OCA,” he says.
“It came as a surprise, but we really believe in Naresh’s vision, it’s a bit different and really made us think.”
Gulati is equally excited about the direction of BPO Intelligence, promising innovations not seen in Australia, and one never seen anywhere in the world, will be announced almost every month of this year.
He says the company would rather stay ahead through quality than price.
“We don’t want to get into the price wars that have been happening around the industry – we have seen what they can do. We would rather invest in quality and innovation,” he says.
“We want to bring IT and print together in a single platform, partnering with our clients to provide better communication solutions – print is just one part of that. We want to change the way print is sold in the market.
“Even though people think it’s a bad time for the industry, there is plenty of opportunity. You just have to be innovative to take advantage of it.”
Gulati says OCA is constantly looking for acquisition opportunities that fit into its overall plan.
OCA formed BPO print through its acquisition of Big Print Typo last May, which has been printing on a Xerox iGen 150.
OCA Group is based in Melbourne and provides print management, warehousing and logistics services through BPO Intelligence, which Print Bound will be part of. Its clients include Monash University, University of Technology Sydney, University of Queensland and educational providers in the US, UK and New Zealand.
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